In October 2016, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had imposed a penalty on incumbent telcos for allegedly not providing points of interconnection (PoI) to billionaire Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio.

The department had sought think tank’s suggestions on the 4G spectrum allocation proposals from the state-driven telcos which felt that such was much-needed to stay competitive with the likes of Reliance Jio as well as Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel.

Aruna Sundararajan Thursday said that the target of $100 billion investment by 2022 as envisaged in the recently-released national policy may turn out to be lesser than the average telecom spend worldwide.

Amitabh Kant, CEO - NITI Aayog said that for our country, the power of Artificial Intelligence needs to be brought to bear in sectors like healthcare, education, environment and agriculture, which are important for the inclusive development of India.

“Don’t just look at the domestic market, use the domestic market to capture the global market in the years to come,” he told entrepreneurs while delivering his address at The ET Startup Awards on Friday.

After PSU banks, the government is likely to infuse capital in two chronically ill telecom PSUs BSNL and MTNL, and the Union Cabinet is likely to take a decision on 4G spectrum allocation to them by the third week of the current month after DoT places the note before it for consideration.

At a high-level meeting at the PMO late Tuesday, it was also decided that the two telcos will frame a Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) to reduce their employee strength, which will be followed by a reduction in the retirement age to 58.